After a
virtual lifetime of watching and kind of loving, while
trashing Sci-Fi Channel original movies, we do have to give
credit where credit is due and today the credit goes to
veteran Sci-Fi Channel movie director Todor Chapkanov and his
directorial debut from a couple years back 'Copperhead'.
Does 'Copperhead' suffer from the typical Sci-Fi Channel
original shortcomings such as a squeezed budget, some suspect
acting, and shoddy CGI? Of course it does silly.
But there are those rare times when the folks behind the
scenes can figure out a workaround, and this is one of those
times.
Wild Bill Longley (Brad Johnson) is heading west. Not
because there's gold out that way but because he can avoid
snakes by heading that way. Before that though he stops
into this little out of the way town to holler at his boy
Murphy, only to get the news that Murphy was gunned down by
the rat bastard outlaw Jesse Evans (Billy Drago). This
doesn't make Wild Bill happy, and he was thinking about taking
Evans down but the snakes are on their way and they will
probably end up killing Jesse anyway. Now we do have a
little problem with this since Wild Bill seemed more than
willing to let every single member of this town die, including
the children of which of there were plenty, as long as he made
it out before the snakes came. Come on Bill.
As it turns out Jesse ropes Bill into a card game which will
ultimately lead to a High Noon Showdown, which will be
followed by Billy Drago bowing out of this movie thirty
minutes in. Thanks for stopping by Billy.
But there's trouble on the horizon
because the copperheads are on this horizon. Zillions of
them. I mean it's gonna get hotter in this town than
nickel night at the whore house. That's Wild Bill's
line, not mine. Bill's not alone in this battle though
as he has a
couple of whores on his side such as Whore Jane (Wendy
Carter), an outlaw in Outlaw Will Bonney (Keith Stone), the
bar owner in Whiskey Slinger Tannen (Nick Harvey) is down for
the cause and also on his team is Josiah (Atanas
Srebrev) the piano playing maestro who is also a doctor on top
of having a healthy knowledge of the bible and amazingly is
also an amateur herpetologist. There's also the cowardly
sheriff as played by FCU favorite Todd Jensen. If you
know Todd Jensen like we know Todd Jensen then you know he's
going to die in this movie, as he has done in so many others,
which is why Todd is an honorary Black Guy to us here at the
FCU. And about actor Atanas Srebrev, it turns out that
this guy, and the movies he's been in, make him the most
represented actor on the FCU as there are over forty Atanas
Srebrev movies on this site, snatching the crown from C.
Thomas Howell. This is partly because we believe the man
to be Bulgarian and we watch a lot of low budget Sci-Fi styled
movies shot in Bulgaria, he also has the ability to speak with
zero accent and he can actually act. Give it up for
Atanas Srebrev!
Anyway, the siege is on, snakes are everywhere, the townsfolk
are dropping like flies and the technique of shooting at
snakes seems woefully inadequate, not that this is going to
stop anybody from doing this. But Wild Bill has a
plan. Which was a good plan until it turned out he
needed another, better plan. Let's just say a bigger
plan. It's MEGA SNAKE TIME!
Want to know one of the main things which makes 'Copperhead'
semi awesome? That would be Nathan Furst, son of
Stephen, brother to Griff. If one is going to make a
Western, sweeping vistas are cool, double swinging door
saloons help, honky-tonk whores are welcomed and dusty towns
are critical but none of this matters if you don't have the
right musical score. More so than any genre of cinema,
the score will make or break your Western and I've seen way
too many modern Westerns which didn't get this. Nathan
Fust got it. Best modern Western styled musical score
since 'Silverado', and this is a lowly sci-fi original we're
talking about here.
The music is key, but most everything else in 'Copperhead' is
above board as well. Brad Johnson made for a pretty
decent squinty eyed cowboy, director Todor Chapkanov has
clearly seen his fair share of Westerns as a kid and he had
his signature Western camera cues on point in addition to
keeping this nonsense plowing forward. Even the High
Noon Showdown felt right and was shot properly, and had some
good build up despite the fact it happened in this movies
first act which does kind of limit the tension of a High Noon
Showdown. Wendy Carter made for a fantastic long-legged
whore, 'Copperhead' didn't take itself all that seriously,
effectively straddling the line between camp and seriousness
while never descending into complete buffoonery, and of course
Atanas Srebrev is in this movie and you can never discount the
Atanas Srebrev factor in any movie.
Sure the CGI snakes look like ass, but if the biggest
criticism I can levy at a Sci-Fi original is that the CGI
looks like ass, which is pretty much a given anyway, then
we're starting off ahead of the game already. All I'm
saying is that credit goes where credit is due and
'Copperhead' is fine example of what every low budget, crap
CGI movie on the SyFy channel should aspire to.
